Paving Paradise
by Spencer5460
Summary: He suddenly craves things he's taken for granted. Cold beer and warm sheets. The way Starsky's eyes crinkle around the edges when he laughs. He tries to imagine how those laugh lines will deepen with age. He thinks of all the things he's left unsaid.


_Late last night_

 _I heard the screen door slam_

 _And a big yellow taxi_

 _Took away my old man_

 _Don't it always seem to go_

 _That you don't know what you've got_

 _'Till it's gone._

Joni Mitchell

 **Chapter One**

"I watch the tube to be entertained, not educated." Starsky is saying.

"That's obvious," Hutch retorts as he comes in from the kitchen. He glares at the images on the TV set. "For once, can't you watch something other than a shoot-em-up or papier mache monster? Try to expand your mind."

"After what I saw go down at Mel's Massage Parlor this afternoon, I think my mind is expanded enough," Starsky leans back into the couch and grins. He takes a swig from his beer, downing almost a third.

"I mean it, Starsk. All this crap you watch is going to melt your brain until you're nothing but a talking chimpanzee." Hutch leans over to flip the channel just as the crabman from outer space was about to claw two young lovers picnicking on the beach.

"C'mon Hutch. That was the best part!" Starsky lurches forward and remainder of his Schlitz erupts down the front of his T-shirt.

Hutch scowls. "Maybe it's too late," he says.

Starsky brushes at the drops. "What's eatin' you? Did that chick with the big boobs at the bowling alley turn you down again?"

"I don't judge a woman by the size of her . . . " Hutch focuses on Starsky's hand and thinks of how it can grip the steering wheel of the Torino to take a corner practically on two wheels, or squeeze the trigger of his Baretta to send a bullet exactly where he wants it.

"Oh never mind," he says.

Hutch goes to a basket of folded laundry beside the door. "Here you go. And don't stain it with ketchup like you did the last one you borrowed." He tosses the words, along with a clean shirt, to his partner. He instantly wishes he could grab them back.

Starsky misses the catch. He looks at the shirt as it lands at his feet, then up at Hutch. A shadow crosses his face. It isn't the first time an ordinary evening is damaged with meaningless back and forth. Hutch's broodishness, Starsky's flippancy.

"I know, I know. No one can meet your high fuckin' standards. And that includes me."

Hutch just stares back at him. Starsky's words pierce him through like an arrow. What he had wanted to say to his father, what he _had_ said to Van. Ringo - and about a dozen others before him - was right. You always hurt the ones you love. A lump in Hutch's throat keeps an apology stuck.

Starsky stands up and steps over the shirt. "Think I'll call it a night. See you in the morning. Just be sure not to wake up on the wrong side of the bed or you might be needing a new partner." The door slams behind him as he leaves.

ooOOoo

Every now and a car hums past on the street below. Night shift workers or bar patrons who'd waited until last call.

Despite the fact that it had been a longer day than usual, one that included responding to a tense domestic violence call, rousting a call girl ring at Mel's Massage and retyping a report that Starsky had turned into pulp fiction, Hutch finds sleep slow in coming. He knows he had reacted badly tonight. He tries to justify to himself how spending so much time with someone as polar opposite from himself as Starsky messed with his head. How their partnership worked was at times as mysterious as a magic trick.

But one should never examine magic too closely lest its simple truths be exposed.

He looks at the clock. It reads one thirty in the morning. The next thing he knows, Starsky is calling him from a deep sleep.

ooOOoo

"Come Hutch, get up. I don't want to be late." Starsky appears as a shadow at his bedroom door. An apparition dressed in grey slacks and a button-down shirt. Curls that had been riotous the day before are now closely cropped.

Even half-wake, he knows something is wrong with the picture. Hutch pulls the sheets away and puts his feet on the floor. He rubs his eyes. He looks to his partner feeling groggy and uncertain.

"What the hell, Starsk. No one told me we were going undercover today as accountants."

Starsky shoots him a funny look but doesn't laugh. "We're not. Why would you say something like that?"

"Because, well, look at you. Or did you run out of clean clothes again and borrow something to wear from Joey the bookie." Hutch pulls on his orange robe and stumbles past Starsky on his way to the kitchen.

Starsky follows after him. "Is there a problem with what I'm wearing?"

"No, of course not. I'm sure Dobey will be thrilled. But I know a few ladies who will be in for a let down." Hutch gathers the usual ingredients to make his morning energy drink with robotic accuracy - goat's milk, whey powder, and some unappetizing greens that will look even worse when liquified.

"Oh yeah? And why is that?"

Hutch looks down pointedly at Starsky's crotch and back up into his eyes. And got . . . nothing. No sapphire-eyed twinkle, no lopsided grin. Hutch feels of frisson of disappointment. Starsky's swagger and lack of shyness in displaying his assets was one of the first things that Hutch had noticed about him in the academy. He'd been the one to talk Hutch out of his Sears brand slacks and into something more suitable for the street, challenging him with a 'This ain't prep school, blondie.'

He recalls how Starsky was the first person to look past his Boy Scout appearance and see something deeper.

Starsky sits down at the kitchen table and thumbs the paper, waiting for Hutch to finish his breakfast. "You mind if I help myself to a banana?" he asks.

" _Do I mind if you. . ._ " the sound of the blender assaults Hutch's ears. He holds his hand down on the top to keep the churning nutrients from exploding all over his counter. _Three, two, one,_ he counts down.

By the time the diverse ingredients merge into liquified health, Starsky is finishing the last bite of banana. He tosses the peel into the trash.

"What's the matter? Did Donna's run out of jelly-filled donuts this morning?" Hutch fights the urge to hold his nose as he downs his breakfast in three long gulps.

"What?" Starsky asks.

Swallowing the last drops, Hutch pastes on what he thinks is a decently satiated smirk and sets the empty glass in the sink.

"Donna's jelly donuts. The morning crew always saves a couple just for you because they're your favorite."

"A breakfast like that would rut your gut," Starsky says.

Hutch pads past him to the shower. Maybe he's rubbing off on Starsky after all, he thinks. But somehow the thought fails to mollify.

 **Chapter Two**

"Where's your car?" Hutch scans the street in front of Venice Place for the red and white striped Torino that was usually impossible to miss.

"Right there," Starsky indicates a tan Ford Granada that was parallel parked between a blue Pacer and a mellow yellow VW bug.

Hutch lets loose a laugh. "You're kidding, right? The tomato blow a gasket again?"

"What's gotten into you today, Hutch? A vegetable blowing a gasket makes no sense. Did your brain get sucked dry watching some silly made-for-TV movie last night?" Starsky walks over to the car and unlocks the driver's side door.

Hutch follows him to the Granada and opens the passenger door when Starsky pulls up the lock. He notes how Starsky is quick to slide back over as he got in.

 _Uncle._ "Hey look, I'm sorry about that crack I made last night about you being a talking chimpanzee. Besides, chimps are really very smart." Hutch throws a beam of sunlight in the form of a smile at Starsky as his partner turns the key in the ignition.

"It must not have made much of an impression, because I don't remember you sayin' it," Starsky says. No quick comeback or even a crack of a grin as the Granada rumbles to life. Hutch feels something turn over in his stomach.

Maybe he should have left well enough alone. Hell, if he'd have just sat down alongside Starsky last night instead of taunting him, he might even have enjoyed seeing Crabman make a lunch out of Santa Monica. Maybe a few hours of mindless relaxation after the stressful day could have helped him sleep better.

"So really," Hutch offers again, "tell me what happened to the striped tomato. I promise I won't say another word about it."

"I don't know anything about a striped tomato and even if I did, I don't know why I'd need to discuss it with you." Starsky keeps his eyes on the road, pulling into the flow of the traffic on the boulevard.

"Just because, dummy. We tell each other everything."

"We do?" Starsky questions indifferently, as if he has reason to doubt him.

Hutch suddenly notices that the unfamiliar car's interior seems a little cool despite the summer morning's gathering heat. The seat material feels too brittle. Starsky feels too far away behind the wheel. Whatever had started churning in his stomach gives a sharp squeeze.

"Of course we do," Hutch reiterates. _Like how you broke your mother's favorite vase as a kid and blamed it on Nicky, or how you lost your virginity to Pamela Nash your senior year, right after you told her you had enlisted._ _And I confessed how I'd gone in my room and balled like a baby when Sam Cooke died and that I got sick the first time I went to sleep-away camp._

Hutch looks over at Starsky waiting for him to turn, shrug his shoulders and grin, like he's succeeded at pulling some big joke on his pompous partner, and now it's all over. But Starsky doesn't. His eyes flick down to the speedometer, then up to the rear view mirror and straight back to the front. All business.

They make it to Parker Center in record time.

ooOOoo

Starsky sits at his desk, arranging mismatched shapes of papers in small piles. Hutch puts a cup of fresh coffee down in front of him, a olive branch in the form of aromatic caffeine. "What's that you're working on?" he asks.

"Goin' through last month's receipts, making sure everything is in order before we turn them in." Starsky reaches for the coffee cup. "Thanks," he says before he takes a sip.

"You bet," Hutch responds. He studies the side of Starsky's face then looks over the papers on the desk. He can't recall the last time he's seen Starsky's space so organized. It's usually just as cluttered as his mind - scattered with facts as disparate as the batting average of the Yankees' designated hitter or the phone number of Rocky's Pizza. He also knows just the right way to calm a victim and can read an informant like a book.

When Starsky says nothing else, Hutch sits down at the desk across from him. He pulls out the files of recently stolen vehicles he'd requested and looks at them without seeing. Something's wrong, but it's more than the missing cars.

It strikes him that Starsky's no different than anyone else in the room. Companionable rather than combustible. It's as if a wire has short-circuited and broken his connection to his partner, killing the electricity that had always before arced between them.

Hutch puts the files down and looks across at Starsky, willing him to look back. Willing him to say _something_. After a few minutes, when Starsky finally does look up, there's a stranger's eyes in his face. "You got somethin' on your mind? He asks.

He should say it, Hutch berates himself. Tell him that whatever has gone wrong with who they were, he wants to fix it. This is _Starsky_ , for fuck's sake. The person who knows him inside and out. The person who knows him better than anyone else ever could and accepts him just the same. But his lips freeze, unable to form the words. Pride and insecurity hold them hostage.

"No, no," Hutch says and looks away. His chest aches.

The rest of day progresses uneventfully. They stop in a couple of pawn shops to look for some reported stolen merchandise, drive out to Inglewood to follow up on call about a missing teenager, meet at the coroner's office to get information on some teeth fragments found in the park.

They're chasing shadows, fighting windmills.

Starsky doesn't recite one crazy anecdote. He doesn't stick Hutch with the tab at lunch, swipe a pencil from his pocket or crowd his space. But he also doesn't pick up that Murphy the pawnbroker was hiding something beneath the counter, or notice how the missing teen's boyfriend's hand shook, and didn't follow up the coroner's report with a dozen questions.

He'd been proficient in his duties, but nothing more.

Their shift dragged on forever. For the first time, Hutch is glad to head back to Parker Center and away from Starsky.

 **Chapter Three**

"Starsky, Hutch, get in here." Captain Dobey bellows, filling the doorway to his office like a solar eclipse. Hutch sets down the paperwork he is finishing up and goes into the office, with Starsky following behind.

"We just got a call in from one of your informants," Dobey indicates the chairs in front of his desk as he goes around to sit behind it. The chair sighs at his weight.

"Oh yeah?" Starsky raises an eyebrow.

"That junkie named Laney you hauled in here last week carrying a eight ball, but you talked me into letting him off," Dobey says with a look toward Hutch.

"We did?"

Hutch shoots him a glance. "Don't you remember? He was just a pidgeon. The kid came in sweating bullets - he was really rattled. Said he got talked into making the drop by his dealer because he was desperate for money. It was his first bust."

"Oh _that_ guy," Starsky says.

As Hutch recalled, they'd given him a lecture and a walk through City Jail to show him what was waiting for him down the road. Then they'd given him a ride home and a warning that there'd be no second chance. Gave him the number of a drug counselor. It was now or never to get his shit together.

And the kid had promised, oh how he'd _promised,_ he'd seen the light.

Hutch had taken it with a grain of salt. Most times the big brother tactic didn't work, but every now and then it did. Hutch could only hope.

"Anyway," Dobie continues, looking from one to the other, "This Laney calls and says he has a present for you. Wants to express his appreciation."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Starsky asks.

Hutch flicks Starsky a look but his expression is a closed door. "Christ, Starsk. Sounds like he's setting up his dealer."

Hutch swivels around to face Dobey. "Did he give a time and place for a meet?"

"Tonight around midnight at the abandoned warehouse on Thirty-Fourth near the airport."

Hutch reaches to pat Starsky's shoulder then stops himself. For the first time he's not sure if his touch will be welcomed.

"But I don't like it." Dobey continues. "The hype said if there was a patrol car anywhere within miles he'd blow the gig himself."

"Maybe the captain's right," Starsky says, "We'd sure be goin' out on a limb for someone who's probably cranked up half the time."

Hutch bristles in frustration. "Come partner, we've been waiting for a break like this!"

Still Starsky hesitates. "This isn't exactly by the book."

"Since when have you ever wanted to stick by the book?" Hutch searches his profile, the curves so familiar he'd recognize them in the dark, hoping to see something he's missed. He doesn't.

Dobey sets his elbows on his desk and leans on his meaty forearms. "If it it was anyone else but you two. . ." his dark gaze swings between them, "I'd say absolutely not. But between you, me and the fly on the wall, I think you know what you're doing. But if anything, I mean _anything_ , smells wrong, you get yourselves out of there. No heroics or taking unnecessary chances."

Hutch feels a heat rise in his belly. _This is why they are here, what they are made for. Why couldn't Starsky feel it too?_

"Well?" he asks his partner.

Starsky sighs. "Okay, I'm in. But after this I'm thinkin' I should ask for a new partner."

He didn't sound like he was joking.

 **Chapter Four**

The neighborhood is dotted with broken down cars, half-empty warehouses. It's one redeeming contribution to the local economy is a scrap metal recycling yard. Forgotten during the day, the place comes alive after dark when the night people come out from their corners. Junkies and dealers, pimps and whores.

Savages and sinners in need of saving.

The tan Granada prowls the quiet street just before midnight like a hungry alley cat. Starsky switches off the headlights and squints into the darkness. Shards of glass from broken windows lay scattered on the ground, reflecting pieces of moonlight.

Hutch has come to think of this landscape as where he and Starsky fit in, as strange as it sounded. Over the years, they'd gotten to know it, and each other, like the backs of their hands. But things, and people, change. Maybe he'd been crazy to believe that he and Starsky belonged together like the street people and the night.

Normally, going into a job like this Hutch would feel as tight as a newly strung guitar, his nerves sharp. It wasn't fear, but the sensation a skydiver might feel when stepping out of plane before the chute opens. Falling free until he's pulled back to safety. Landing with his feet on the ground.

Starsky had always been Hutch's parachute. His back up. His soft landing. But tonight Starsky is an unanswered question. Their psychic connection is gone. Hutch feels empty and alone, bereft of the comfort from his partner's proximity. The car's front seat is as wide as the ocean.

"Stop over there," Hutch directs and Starsky tucks the Granada into an alley next to the Thirty-Fourth Street warehouse. Starsky gets out of the driver's side and Hutch scrambles over the hood to join him. He points up to one of the building's broken windows, about seven feet off the ground.

"Give me a boost. I'll go in and take a look around. You keep an eye out here."

Starsky nods and bends low, interlocking his fingers. Hutch uses the cup of Starsky's hands as a step up to the small window. "Give me five," he tells him as he grabs onto the narrow ledge and hauls himself in.

Starsky merely grunts.

ooOOoo

Inside, the warehouse is dark as a cave and smells of old motor oil, cats and garbage. Hutch pulls his Magnum from his side holster, appreciating the weight of it in his hands even as the veil of darkness conceals any possible target. He stands still and waits for his eyes to adjust.

Any other time he would have felt his partner's presence despite their physical separation. He would have sensed and even anticipated Starsky's moves, like a dancer. Now he feels nothing but a stark aloneness. He flicks his eyes around, straining to see. He makes out some broken crates and pallets scattered about. A few old blankets and one thin, filthy mattress.

The junkies that call this place home have scattered. But Hutch senses someone else is here. He hears movement from the opposite side of the warehouse and fights the urge to call out his partner's name. Has it been five minutes yet? _God, why can't he feel him_?

The strike of a match against a rough surface causes a flare of light to illuminate a face twenty five feet away. Haunted eyes in a hollow cheeked face. "I've been expecting you," the man says. He puts a cigarette to his lips and lights it with the match. He inhales deeply and a puff of smoke lifts like a soul leaving a body.

There's no point in trying to hide. "Who are you?" Hutch asks.

"I'm who you've been looking for. You can call me Rafe. We have a friend in common. I believe his name is Laney."

"I see," Hutch says. So it's a set-up after all. He shoves his dismay to the back of his mind. He's not going to get his bust after all. He's just being used as a playing piece in a twisted game.

"You think you did Laney a favor, Detective. You cut the kid a break, but his loyalty is to me, not you. You see, you may be able to give him want he _wants_ but I give him what he _needs_." Rafe lifts the cigarette to his lips again and takes a slow, leisurely toke. The act is almost hypnotic.

Hutch blinks. "What you give him is going to end up killing him. And dozens more like him. But I don't suppose you care much about that." ' _Keep him talking, buy some time,'_ he tells himself.Hell, he's been in tighter squeezes than this. And Starsky is out there somewhere. Any minute now he'll make a loud distraction, or better yet, come up from behind Rafe and knock him over the head. Then they'll grin across the dark chasm, feel their hearts pounding in rhythm as they celebrate beating the odds again.

Rafe shrugs his shoulders. "Life here is cheap, Detective. In the end, we all die alone. Even you. But in the meantime, one has to make a living. The trouble is, you've been interfering in mine. And I can't let that continue."

Rafe drops the cigarette and twists the glowing stub under his foot. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket but Hutch already has his Magnum raised, his finger on the trigger. "Don't do it, Rafe. Killing a police officer will get you hard time."

"Oh, _I'm_ not going to kill you," Rafe drawls as he proceeds to pull out a pack of cigarettes. " _He_ is."

By his left ear Hutch hears the unmistakable click of a safety as it's pulled back. The sound is magnified in the high-ceilinged warehouse. Laney steps out from behind a stack of crates. He's pointing a gun straight at Hutch with both hands. His whole body twitches like a live wire. His eyes are wild and Hutch can clearly see their whites.

"What's going on, Laney?" Hutch asks. "You said you were going to try to get it together."

"There's nothin' _to_ get together, cop. I've been a fuck up my whole life. What's one more time?"

The barrel of the gun looks as big as a cannon. Hutch's tightly strung nerves are dangerously close to snapping. Still, there's no sign of Starsky or the magic that had made their bond unbreakable.

"That's not true, Laney. No one's a complete fuck up." _With one exception,_ the thought rises unbidden. He understands some of the junkie's desolation.

"I'm just an empty shell," Laney says, his hands unsteady on the gun. "Rafe helps to fill me up. Ya know? Horse takes the pain away. You made a mistake in trustin' me."

Hutch holds out his hands, the Magnum hangs from his fingers. "Think about what you're doing. Don't ruin your life for this asshole. Besides, my partner is outside watching for me. He'll be on you in a second."

"Wrong, detective," Rafe calls out. "Your partner left. He must have gotten a more important call." He laughs. "You sure pick the wrong people to trust."

Hutch's heart sinks. Starsky thought this venture was a wild goose chase; he'd made it a point to let him know the entire drive out. He'd said that without backup they were wasting their time. Hell, Hutch can't blame him for leaving. Who knows what kind of call came through after Hutch climbed through the rabbit hole of a window?

Laney isn't backing down. He's too messed up and strung out to think for himself. Hutch searches his eyes. Anguish is burning him up from the inside like fire. Maybe he'd disappointed his family, lost a lover or hurt a friend. Maybe it wasn't one big thing but a long string of small failures that led him to Rafe for relief. He'd messed up so much he felt life was no longer worth living. Or was Hutch merely looking in a mirror?

Hutch closes his eyes and bows his head. What else could he possibly say that would be worth listening to? Hutch feels a jolt like an electric shock. There's a loud buzzing in his ears, then a deafening crack as the world rips apart. He feels himself falling in slow motion. As he tumbles, a searing pain shoots out through his entire body as if his blood has turned to molten metal, leaking through his gut and into his extremities.

 **Chapter Five**

He's dying. Alone in the dark. Rafe and Laney are gone. No help is coming. He suddenly craves things he's taken for granted. Cold beer and warm sheets. The way Starsky's eyes crinkle around the edges when he laughs. He tries to imagine how those laugh lines will deepen with age. He thinks of all the things he's left unsaid.

Death is a blank slate, a frightening unknown.

Hutch calls out a name and the sound of it ricochets off the darkness. He feels himself weighted down as though buried in sand, his arms pinned to his sides. His heart thumps fiercely in his chest and he gulps air like a fish.

"Hey, hey buddy. Relax."

The soft words emerge out of the blackness, encouraging him. Hutch pushes back against the weight that holds him down. He blinks his eyes. The image of a face forms above him in relief against nothingness. Dark curly hair. Deep blue eyes.

"Starsky," the name chokes him. He occurs to him that he should have known his partner would be the last thing he'd see - real or imagined.

"Yeah, it's me. It's okay. Who did you think it was? Godzilla?" The face says.

"Christ. I've been shot. I'm dying," Hutch gasps.

"No, Hutch." Starsky lets go of Hutch's arms and runs his hands over Hutch's torso, then brushes the hair back off Hutch's forehead. It's damp with sweat. "You're safe. I'm here."

Hutch reaches for Starsky's shoulders and doesn't let go even after his partner helps him to sit.

"Sounds like you had yourself one hell of a dream," Starsky says.

"Dream?" Hutch looks around. The shadowy warehouse dissolves and he's in his own bed, a solid Starsky beside him, his arm braced around him. His eyes search the dim light, looking for any signs of Rafe or Laney, but they're gone. He sees his dresser, a familiar art print on the wall, a half-opened closet door.

Starsky slides Hutch over and sits on the edge of the bed next to him, stretching out one leg and leaving one blue-shoed foot on the floor. They're touching thigh to thigh. Hutch begins to shake as cold waves of relief wash over him. "There was a warehouse and a drug dealer I went in to bust. But our informant turned on me. He shot me instead," Hutch says.

"Yeah, Hutch, just a dream. There's no one here but you 'n me." Starsky says. Starsky pulls him in and Hutch drops his head onto his shoulder, the heat from Starsky's body working to dispel the chill.

"You stayed outside. Then you left me," Hutch says into Starsky's shirt.

"You dreamed you got shot, huh? Serves you right goin' in on a bust without me." There's a smile in his voice, a wordless gentle chiding.

"I'm so sorry, Starsk. I ruined everything."

"What did you ruin?" 

"Me, you. _Us_." Hutch struggles to straighten up but Starsky just pushes his head back down to his shoulder.

"Not possible. How do ya think you did that?"

"Last night. And every time before. The petty arguing, the insults that step over the line. I'm terrified of my own weaknesses. I get so caught up finding flaws that I forget that's the stuff perfection is made of." Caught between the chimeras of the night and the stark realities of day, the admission tumbles freely from his lips.

The brutal honesty of it surprises him.

"You're not telling me anything I don't know," Starsky says. And suddenly Hutch feels their connection back strong and deep; the well he'd feared had run dry brims with sweet, life-giving water.

"You. . . you said you wanted another partner. How can you still want to be with me? We're so . . ."

"Different? Incompatible?"

Hutch nods his head against Starsky's shoulder.

"Who else would want a pain-in-the-ass for a partner? I guess you're stuck with me."

"You're not such a pain in the ass."

"Who said I'm talking about _me_?" Starsky shimmies his shoulder and Hutch's head is dislodged for a moment. But he settles it back down again. He feels his entire body relax, practically float. He doesn't want to think. Thinking too much only gets him in trouble. He just wants to feel for a few minutes more.

Good thing Starsky's willing to oblige. Another long day is ahead. Followed up a recuperative night. He doesn't want to waste a minute.

 **FIN**


End file.
